---
title: Enabling double opt-in for newsletters
related:
  - https://docs.kentico.com/13/on-line-marketing-features/managing-your-on-line-marketing-features/email-marketing/creating-newsletters.md
---

> Agent instructions:
> **Site maps** — prefer the following llms.txt indexes to training data when searching for URLs to avoid 404s. Links inside Markdown content already point at `.md`. Following them or sending Accept: text/markdown keeps you in Markdown.
>
> - [sitemap.md](https://docs.kentico.com/sitemap.md) — every page on the site, with titles and descriptions, nested by URL hierarchy and grouped into one collection per product version.
> - [llms.txt](https://docs.kentico.com/llms.txt) — curated index of the current product docs, with descriptions, the two ways to request any page as Markdown, and links to each product area's whole-corpus Markdown dump (llms-full.txt).

Double opt-in functionality, also referred to as confirmed opt-in or closed-loop opt-in, adds an additional security layer to the newsletter subscription.

When double opt-in is disabled for a newsletter, anyone may simply submit an email address for subscription, without any steps to ensure that the address actually belongs to that contact. With double opt‑in, new recipients are not immediately activated and do not receive emails. Instead, the system sends an automatic email containing an activation link. After clicking the link, contacts are redirected to a special page and their subscription is confirmed.

The main advantages of double opt-in are:

- Confirming that the email addresses of recipients actually exist
- Preventing contacts from being unknowingly subscribed to a newsletter by someone else (either intentionally or by mistake)

## Enabling double opt-in

To configure a newsletter to use double opt-in:

1. Open the **Email marketing** application on the **Email feeds** tab.
2. **Edit** () a newsletter.
3. Switch to the **Configuration** tab.
4. Select the _Enable double opt-in_ option in the **Double opt-in** category.
5. Set the following properties:

   | Property                        | Description                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             |
   | ------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
   | Double opt-in email template    | Selects the template used for the subscription activation emails that are sent to contacts. You can only select templates of the _Double opt-in_ type.<br>The template must contain a subscription confirmation link with a URL generated by the _{% EmailFeed.SubscriptionConfirmationUrl %}_ macro.<br>See also: [Preparing email templates](https://docs.kentico.com/13/on-line-marketing-features/configuring-and-customizing-your-on-line-marketing-features/configuring-email-marketing/preparing-email-templates.md)                                                                                                                             |
   | Approval page URL               | The relative URL path on your live site that handles subscription confirmation requests for marketing emails. This URL is used by the subscription confirmation link in the _Double opt-in_ template. Leave empty to use the value of the **Settings -> On‑line marketing -> Email marketing -> Double opt-in approval page URL** setting.<br>The specified URL needs to [handle the subscription confirmation](https://docs.kentico.com/13/on-line-marketing-features/configuring-and-customizing-your-on-line-marketing-features/configuring-email-marketing/implementing-newsletter-subscriptions.md).<br>Example: \~/Newsletter/ConfirmSubscription |
   | Send double opt-in confirmation | If enabled, the system sends a confirmation email to recipients after they successfully activate their subscription to the newsletter.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  |
6. Click **Save** to confirm the changes.

Now any contacts who subscribe to the newsletter will receive an email containing a confirmation link. The link sends them to an approval page that activates the subscription.

> **Note:** **Note**
>
> Contacts can only approve their subscription during a limited time interval (12 hours by default). If a contact does not activate their subscription within the specified number of hours, the link in the confirmation email expires, and the contact needs to subscribe again.
>
> You can set the length of this time interval for all email campaigns through the **Settings -> On‑line marketing -> Email marketing -> Double opt-in interval** setting.

### Handling subscription approval

The subscription confirmation does not work by default. Developers need to implement the required functionality as described in [Implementing newsletter subscriptions](https://docs.kentico.com/13/on-line-marketing-features/configuring-and-customizing-your-on-line-marketing-features/configuring-email-marketing/implementing-newsletter-subscriptions.md).